Nikkei reported that "for the second time this year, Sony has lowered projected sales volume in its struggling smartphone business, citing weak sales of inexpensive models due to stiffer competition from Chinese manufacturers."

Sony now expects global smartphone sales to come in at approximately 40 million units for the fiscal year ending March 2015. This is down from its initial guidance of 50 million.

According to the report, weakness in the yen vs. the U.S. dollar is also putting pressure on the company with an expected operating loss to be greater than the $1.65 billion (180 billion yen) loss projected in September.

The Nikkei report concluded that "the company's estimate of a groupwide operating loss of 40 billion yen for the full year is likely to be left unchanged. The April-September period appears to have resulted in a loss of tens of billions of yen, down from a profit of 51.1 billion yen in the prior-year period, but strong sales of game systems, image sensors, movies and financial products are expected to partially offset the sluggishness in the smartphone segment."